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Subject: RE: [chairs] Subtleties in the OASIS TC Member Attendance Rules


Allow me to toss out a members' perspective, one that has little to do
with the strictly technical components of TC participation.

People derive benefits from 
'being a member" of OASIS TCs for a lot of different reasons.  Some such
reasons are strictly warm and fuzzy stuff--it makes them feel like an
important part of the process. Further, I would wager OASIS TC
membership is in more than a few employee performance evaluations, goals
etc as a measure of meeting some corporate objective.  

That said, we should be careful not to marginalize or sideline those
that can only contribute minimally and cannot commit to travel, meeting
attendance, concalls at 3am etc  I think Jon's point is valid, these
members are an important part of the process and we should find ways to
enable that. (remembering these are dues paying members like all others)

Notwithstanding the contradictory nature of the term non-voting member,
I think it serves the above needs well and I think one intuitively knows
what these mean.  I think grouping those with some valid input with
other non-contributing Observers is less correct than grouping all
contributing persons as members, where only those seeking and abiding by
the restrictions have voting rights, quorum implications etc.

Scott...

-----Original Message-----
From: jon.bosak@sun.com [mailto:jon.bosak@sun.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, July 01, 2003 2:37 PM
To: karl.best@oasis-open.org
Cc: Eduardo.Gutentag@sun.com; Jon.Bosak@sun.com; hlockhar@bea.com;
chairs@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: Re: [chairs] Subtleties in the OASIS TC Member Attendance Rules

I certainly don't disagree with the premise that the kavi
interface should align with the official OASIS TC process, but I
am finding the category that allows observers to post on occasion
to be extremely useful from an organizational standpoint.  The
problem, as I see it, lies in calling this category "nonvoting
member," which from a parliamentary standpoint is a contradiction
in terms.  The interface should be distinguishing between
"read/write" and "read-only" observers rather than between "voting"
and "nonvoting" members.

| I'm working an fixes to Kavi to support this, but unfortunately
| it's not going well...

Since we're starting to depend fairly heavily on the (badly named)
"nonvoting member" category, I'm actually glad to hear that you're
not making rapid progress on fixing this....

Jon

   Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2003 10:31:31 -0400
   From: "Karl F. Best" <karl.best@oasis-open.org>
   CC: Jon.Bosak@sun.com, hlockhar@bea.com, chairs@lists.oasis-open.org

   Agreed: We generally shouldn't be changing the process to match the 
   tool. Tools are supposed to match the way we do things. I'm working
an 
   fixes to Kavi to support this, but unfortunately it's not going
well...

   -Karl



   Eduardo Gutentag wrote:
   >  > An alternative would be to officially legitimize the
   >  > pseudo-category "member, nonvoting" conferred by the Kavi
   >  > interface and say that (voting) members who don't attend two out
   >  > of every three meetings are automatically shifted into this
   >  > category so that they don't count towards a quorum.  The
original
   >  > design deliberately prohibited nonvoters from posting, but I now
   >  > think that this may have been an unnecessary restriction.
   > 
   > No, let's not go there. There is, I believe, no way to
differentiate
   > between a prospective member and a 'member, nonvoting'.
   > 
   > What I would like to see is for the Kavi process to follow the
OASIS TC
   > process and not the other way around...
   > 
   >  >
   >  > Having said that, I have to add that I'm not eager to continue
   >  > this discussion in email.  Process design issues have to be
hashed
   >  > out face-to-face.
   > 
   > Or over the phone...
   > 
   > 
   > 
   > 
   > Jon.Bosak@Sun.COM wrote:
   > 
   >> (I wrote this before seeing Eduardo's response, but I think that
   >> my answer mostly agrees with his.)
   >>
   >> | Suppose a member misses 2 meetings in a row. They are sent a
   >> | warning and they attend the next meeting. So far so good.
However,
   >> | unless they attend the NEXT meeting, they will lose membership,
as
   >> | they will have missed 3 out of 4 meetings. In other words, the
   >> | pattern N-N-Y-N should be treated the same as N-Y-N-N.
   >>
   >> The requirement is that people have to attend two meetings in
   >> every three-meeting window, and if they don't, they get a warning.
   >> So the state transitions in your example go like this:
   >>
   >> 1. Y-N-N warning sent
   >>
   >> 2. N-N-Y OK (resets the counter)
   >>
   >> 3. N-Y-N warning sent ...
   >>
   >> The language "or if the member consistently fails to attend
   >> two out of every three meetings" was intended to prevent people
   >> from gaming the system by repeating this cycle ad infinitum. 
   >> Before we get into an extended discussion of this interpretation,
   >> I hasten to add that the language could use some work.  It was
   >> copied from the rules for ANSI committee membership, as expressed
   >> in NCITS V3 rules as follows:
   >>
   >>    Voting members of NCITS and its subgroups shall be terminated
   >>    under the following conditions:
   >>
   >>    a) The principal and all alternate representative(s) shall be
   >>       warned in writing upon failure of the organization to:
   >>
   >>       (1) attend two out of three successive meetings, in which
   >>       case the membership shall be terminated if not
   >>       represented at the next meeting; or
   >>
   >>       (2) return 80% of the total letter ballots (non-accelerated)
   >>       closing during the present calendar quarter, in which
   >>       case the membership shall be terminated if the member
   >>       fails to return at least 80% of the total letter ballots
   >>       (non-accelerated) closing during the subsequent quarter.
   >>
   >> Note that the NCITS/ANSI rules assume a delegate membership
   >> structure rather than an individual expert membership structure.
   >>
   >> | (i). A member shall be warned by mail from the chair of the TC
   >> | upon their first failure to attend two out of every three
   >> | successive meetings of the TC. Membership shall be terminated if
   >> | the member fails to attend the next meeting following
transmittal
   >> | of the warning or if the member consistently fails to attend two
   >> | out of every three meetings.
   >>
   >> In light of some experience with the TC process, I think the best
   >> fix (and the one that best represents the original intention of
   >> the committee that drafted this language) would simply be to
   >> change "shall be terminated" to "may be terminated."  In other
   >> words, make this attendance pattern grounds for termination, but
   >> leave the final disposition to the chair.  I know that this is
   >> basically what we had in mind.
   >>
   >> An alternative would be to officially legitimize the
   >> pseudo-category "member, nonvoting" conferred by the Kavi
   >> interface and say that (voting) members who don't attend two out
   >> of every three meetings are automatically shifted into this
   >> category so that they don't count towards a quorum.  The original
   >> design deliberately prohibited nonvoters from posting, but I now
   >> think that this may have been an unnecessary restriction.
   >>
   >> Having said that, I have to add that I'm not eager to continue
   >> this discussion in email.  Process design issues have to be hashed
   >> out face-to-face.
   >>
   >> Jon
   >>
   >>
   >>
   >> You may leave a Technical Committee at any time by visiting 
   >>
http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/chairs/members/leave_workgr
oup.php
   >>
   > 


   -- 
   =================================================================
   Karl F. Best
   Vice President, OASIS
   office  +1 978.667.5115 x206     mobile +1 978.761.1648
   karl.best@oasis-open.org      http://www.oasis-open.org


   You may leave a Technical Committee at any time by visiting
http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/chairs/members/leave_workgr
oup.php



You may leave a Technical Committee at any time by visiting
http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/chairs/members/leave_workgr
oup.php




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